Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

DISCOVERING THE NEW COVENANT
word for word, out of these books. He immediately contacted
the White Estate of the General Conference of Seventh-day
Adventists, and to his amazement they were not at all interested
in his findings. In fact, they warned him to keep these
things to himself or be fired. However, he continued to release
his information and was, therefore, relieved of his position
as a Seventh-day Adventist minister. Shortly thereafter
he released his findings in a book titled, The White Lie. 1
This was the backdrop to my first year in ministry.
While traditional Adventists were pushing a legalistic perfectionism,
others were taking their understanding of grace
to its logical conclusion, rejecting the investigative judgment
and the authority of Ellen White. Since Ellen White had so
strongly taught the investigative judgment, declaring it to be
the truth as she had seen it in vision, that very discussion destroyed
the credibility of the Adventist prophet. The release
of Walter Rea’s materials revealed that there were many
more issues to be considered. Could it be that Ellen White
was not inspired as people had thought? By the end of that
year, as I headed for the seminary at Andrews University, I
seriously wondered if I was truly a Seventh-day Adventist.
Shortly thereafter, my senior pastor was asked to resign, and
many of the professors at Southern Missionary College were
asked to resign or relocate.
During that year of chaos, several things happened in
both my thinking and in my life. I had studied like never before.
I had seen Adventism from a whole new perspective.
One thing was clear; I knew from my own research in the
manuscript documents that Ellen G. White definitely borrowed
extensively from other authors and often attached the
“I was shown” phrase to her writings. I also realized that the
doctrine of the investigative judgment had serious flaws. So,
with my new wife of 18 months, I went to Andrews Theological
Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan, knowing that
1 Walter Rea, The White Lie, (Turlock CA: M + R Publications, 1982)
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